FRANKFURT, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank is planning to rebrand its asset management arm to DWS, the name of its mainstay retail brand, ahead of its stock market flotation but will have a structure in place that gives it full control over the business.

Germany’s largest lender earlier this year announced plans to list a minority stake of the asset management operations, which could achieve a total valuation of around 8 billion euros ($9.48 billion), as part of a broader overhaul following costly lawsuits and trading scandals.

On Tuesday, the bank said in a statement that during the first quarter 2018 the asset management unit will assume the legal structure of a partnership limited by shares, or KGaA.

That structure ensures that Deutsche Bank retains control of the unit even if its shareholding fell below the 75 percent needed to dominate normal German stock corporations, possibly as part of a merger.

However, in case Deutsche would fall below a certain - so far undisclosed threshold - in the asset management division, the unit would automatically loose the KGaA status and become a normal stock corporation or AG.

The asset management unit, which offers 600 investment funds, is also targeting management fee margins of more than 30 basis points (0.3 percent), an adjusted cost-income-ratio of less than 65 percent and a dividend payout ratio of 65 to 75 percent. ($1 = 0.8436 euros) (Reporting by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Andreas Cremer)